tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post5865822653358793981..comments2024-03-27T13:13:25.164-04:00Comments on johnshaplin: The Red Mosque by Nicholas Schmidlejohnshaplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post-28376929534975437452010-02-14T11:10:39.833-05:002010-02-14T11:10:39.833-05:00When my wife and I had been kicked out of Pakistan...When my wife and I had been kicked out of Pakistan in January 2007, I had left feeling jealous of anyone who got to stay, to watch, to live this fascinating country as it wrestled against military dictatorship, vied to enact the rule of law, and struggled to form a single, unified national identity. Why did I have to go home? But I also knew all along that I should be able to get back. Stay away a few months and let the air clear. That's all it would take, I thought.<br /><br />This time (2008) it was different. I left in a bulletproof car. I knew, sitting in Dubai, that I was done with Pakistan for a while. I needed a lot more time away from the intelligence agencies. And I had left most of my optimism about Pakistan behind. Musharraf was gone, but the military was still in control. Elections had brought a democratically elected civilian government, but the average Pakistanis felt no more empowered than they did before. Despite the populist rhetoric of the PPP, poor people still couldn't afford basic commodities like wheat and tea, never mind "luxuries" like electricity, sanitation, clean water or access to medical care. Pakistan stood on the verge of bankruptcy, in almost every sense.johnshaplinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post-72986132367814768252010-02-14T10:56:53.043-05:002010-02-14T10:56:53.043-05:00"To Live or to Perish Forever; Two Tumultuous..."To Live or to Perish Forever; Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan" by Nicholas Schmidle; Henry Holt &Co, 2009<br /><br />"Wouldn't we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife a husband, a lover a mistress, nor parent a child? Perhaps that's why men have invented God- a being capable of understanding. Perhaps if I wanted to be understood or to understand I would bamboozle myself into belief but I am a reporter; God exists only for leader-writers." - Thomas Fowler, in "The Quiet American" by Graham Greene.johnshaplinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.com